NRA: Society has left children 'utterly defenseless'
mug.cnn
Posted by
CNN Wire Staff

(CNN) – Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, said "for all the noise and anger directed at us ... nobody has addressed the most important, pressing and immediate question we face: How do we protect our children right now ... in a way that we know works."

At a press event in Washington, LaPierre said U.S. society has left children "utterly defenseless."

A protester interrupted the NRA appearance before reporters with a banner accusing the NRA of killing children. The protester was led out of the room as he shouted anti-NRA slogans.

LaPierre added that violent crime is increasing in the U.S. due to a lack of willing to prosecute such acts.

And, the dumb ass NRA had the perfect chance to get "good guy" points and they BLEW IT!

Regarding the NRA, I don't think you have a good, proper perspective on this. The NRA exists to serve their members. Their millions and millions of dues-paying members. If they support any form of gun control, their members will revolt and throw out the president. If the Brady Campaign starts arguing that maybe we have enough gun control, their leadership will get sacked. Same at PETA if they start saying a hamburger once a week might not be a bad idea.

__________________ how many emo kids does it take to change a lightbulb? HOW MANY?! none they just sit in the dark and cry

People need to understand what the NRA is. Theyre a special interest group designed to protect the rights of their members. Period. There is no obligation to meet Nancy Pelosi or the con man in the White House "half way" on anything. Just as those two refuse to meet Right To Life groups "halfway"

Regarding the NRA, I don't think you have a good, proper perspective on this. The NRA exists to serve their members. Their millions and millions of dues-paying members. If they support any form of gun control, their members will revolt and throw out the president. If the Brady Campaign starts arguing that maybe we have enough gun control, their leadership will get sacked. Same at PETA if they start saying a hamburger once a week might not be a bad idea.

People need to understand what the NRA is. Theyre a special interest group designed to protect the rights of their members. Period. There is no obligation to meet Nancy Pelosi or the con man in the White House "half way" on anything. Just as those two refuse to meet Right To Life groups "halfway"

Regarding the NRA, I don't think you have a good, proper perspective on this. The NRA exists to serve their members. Their millions and millions of dues-paying members. If they support any form of gun control, their members will revolt and throw out the president. If the Brady Campaign starts arguing that maybe we have enough gun control, their leadership will get sacked. Same at PETA if they start saying a hamburger once a week might not be a bad idea.

Obviously the NRA doesn't understand what their members want, because recent polling suggests most NRA members ARE in favor of sensible gun regulations.

74% of NRA members favor requiring a criminal background check of anyone purchasing a gun (close the gun shows loophole). No mention of this during the NRA PR event today.

The pro-gun people who will immediately try to attack the source of this polling data report saying that "Mayors AGainst Illegal Guns" is an anti-gun organization should take note of the fact that the polling data was collected by Frank Luntz's company.

Armed guards or an armed school police force will not prevent school shootings without additional gun regulation.

1) So-called "assault weapons", which are just rifles with dumb useless features tacked onto them to make them look scary, are not deadlier than handguns at close range. In fact, they are arguably less deadly, especially compared to .45 handguns.

2) We will never (at least not for the next 100 years) ban .45 handguns

3) We will never (at least not for the next 100 years), ban semiautomatics and force people to switch to revolvers.

4) We will never, ever for any forseeable period in the future at all, try to confiscate the current 300MM guns in the USA.

5) Reducing magazine sizes to a level the people would tolerate (maybe 15) will not significantly reduce gun violence.

6) Other ideas which may have some merit and which we may want to implement anyway, like tighter requirements to get a gun, lock a gun up, etc, will not significantly reduce gun violence.

Those are all pretty much given facts.

__________________ how many emo kids does it take to change a lightbulb? HOW MANY?! none they just sit in the dark and cry

Is it too radical, too outlandish, too OBVIOUS, to state that we cannot protect every member of society, or any subset (including innocent kids) from every risk and danger, and that certainly includes lunatics wielding guns who decide to do the absolutely unthinkable and mass murder little kids.

I'm perfectly fine with trying to figure out reasonable precautions, including better security, but having thousands upon thousands of schools with a mall cop on board doesn't make a helluva lot of sense to me. Neither does some "let's ban all guns" argument that will never fly in a million years.

Here's the thing -- ultimately, schools and schoolgrounds are UNQUESTIONABLY going to be easy, open and obvious places where tons of helpless people are going to congregate. Unless you turn them all into a Leavenworth, even if you had some mall cop hanging around, that won't protect kids right before or after school, where if a monster wants to mow down kids, there isn't a whole lot that can really be done.

I realize I'm heartlessly pragmatic, but mall cop is a ridiculous proposal on its face.

Gun control isn't realistically going to get us much furhter either. Unless you forced everyone back to Revolutionary War era muzzle loading rifles (good luck with that), any whacko is going to be able to do an absurd amount of damage in a VERY short time with any kind of gun beyond the BB variety.

It's easy to overreact to such a tragedy. Again, I have no issue with having a panel of experts on security and schools assess what can realistically be done, but I doubt the answer lies in some kind of heightened gun control, and I'm 1000% confident it's not having some fool with a gun on school grounds.

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